Our Secret
by Mare Liberum
Summary: For Arabella Figg, spy for the Order of the Pheonix, breeding kneazles was not only a hobby but the perfect means to gather intelligence. An old woman in Knockturn Alley stood out like a sore thumb. An old woman in Knockturn Alley selling XXX classified animals was surprisingly inconspicuous.
1. Chapter 1: A Good Spy

**Chapter 1: A Good Spy**

Arabella Figg knew she was a bloody good spy.

She did not need to be told this. It wasn't a compliment but a statement of the obvious; one was short, one was plain, one had straight brown hair, and one was a bloody good spy.

On rainy days, when Arabella sat on the sofa with a part-kneazle or two purring away on her lap, and the memories had opportunity to come back to her, she would sometimes think of Alastor Moody—how in May of 1945, they had sauntered through the streets of London that were littered with paper and streamers, how they had joined the revelers and danced, how he had walked her to her flat that evening, leaned against her doorframe with a lock of blonde hair falling over his eye, and said, "you're bloody good, you know."

Perhaps at the time, he thought it was a sexy thing to say, and maybe he was overconfident in his raffish charm, but the compliment had been as unwelcome to Arabella as telling her she was ugly. Even then, when she was young and fresh, and Alastor still had two blue eyes, she knew that to be a good spy was the opposite of what it was to be the kind of girl a girl would want to be.

To be a good spy was to be artificial. It was to be no one else at that moment but a representation of the woman Alastor wanted. It was to be conscious of how she looked up at him from under her eyelashes and how she posed her skinny body—pushing her bust forward and leaning into her hip to create the illusion of curves. It was to never be able to relax around him, and to never be able to enjoy his presence—to be constantly noticing and contriving. Arabella grieved at the knowledge that she would never be desired for being herself (someone she wasn't sure existed) but she had still taken Alastor to bed that night and made him tell her nice things.

Arabella preferred kneazles to people. They were wary animals, naturally distrustful, and it re-assured her of her own personhood that they trusted her for the most part—they could be unpredictable, which Arabella liked as well. They were clever little things, too, and good listeners. They would look right at Arabella with their big orange eyes when she spoke as if they understood.

Arabella also liked that there was an element of danger in breeding kneazles. The part-kneazles and cats were allowed to roam the house but Arabella kept the full-kneazles in back for when she had company. When dealing with full-kneazles, Arabella found that one had to rely purely on instinct. If she noticed the swishing of a tail and the flicking of ears, she could predict if a kneazle would try to swipe at her. If she spent too much time considering the _meaning_ of what the kneazle was doing, however, it would have already sprung from muscular hind quarters and have its claws at her throat.

After the first wizarding war, when Arabella was stationed in London, and then in Little Whinging, the kneazles had become not only a hobby and additional means of income, but another way for her to gather information. An old woman in Knockturn Alley stood out like a sore thumb. An old woman in Knockturn Alley selling XXX classified animals was surprisingly inconspicuous. Arabella would often stop and chat with Tamora Burke, who loved kneazles but couldn't have one because her husband was allergic. Sometimes, they would have tea. With a kneazle kitten on her lap and perhaps a tipple of sherry, Tamora had almost no filter.

Other targets required more window dressing. Rudolph Parkinson, for example, was unaffected by kittens and little old ladies. For him, she would sell grey-market kneazle whiskers at a reduced price and high risk to herself in collecting them. "I'm too daft to figure-out the paperwork," she would tell him. He liked her to be stupid, especially since she was a squib. These encounters scared Arabella most of all because stupid was one thing she certainly was not. She doubted there was an intelligent sparkle in her eyes but what if she said the wrong thing? What if she was too inquisitive? Before making her way to Knockturn Alley for these deals, Arabella would look in the mirror and repeat over and over again, "I am stupid. I am ignorant. I am stupid..." A feeling of emptiness would come over her and would last until she was back in the safety of her own home and Mr. Paws, her favorite part-kneazle, would butt his head against her shins. Arabella would stroke his white fur and slowly, she would return to herself.

Surveillance, while not the most exciting, was the most interesting to Arabella. She liked to be able to watch without needing to wear a persona. The so-called David Maskell, who lived one street over, was one person she kept tabs on. It was the patent leather dress shoe and sport sock combination that first tipped her off. Odd fashion choice for a young man who was otherwise conventionally dressed in jeans and a jumper. Every fortnight or so, in the early afternoon, Maskell would walk an ugly little mutt past Arabella's house, and then the Dursley's. The dog pulled on the lead but Maskell maintained a suspiciously slow pace.

Though she wouldn't call it surveillance, Arabella liked to watch other people as well. She liked dark cafes and busy shopping centers. Arabella thought at those times, as she observed people's lives unfold before her, that she would have enjoyed being a novelist. She was interested in people and their stories, even if she was not as comfortable interacting with them. The best place to people-watch, for Arabella, was at meetings of the Order of the Phoenix. It was a rare occasion to have Hogwarts professors, barkeepers, Unspeakables, healers, homemakers, politicians, and shopkeepers all in the same location for the same purpose. One could learn a whole hell of a lot.


	2. Chapter 2: Sex, Drugs, and Socks

**Chapter 2. Sex, Drugs, and Socks**

Arabella Figg enjoyed a drink every now and again but made it a point not to drink with Alastor Moody. He didn't come from strong Scottish stock like she did—a people who rubbed wee bairns gums with whisky to help with the teething. Or Minerva McGonagall, for that matter. For such a skinny woman, McGonagall could hold her liquor, and men liked her for that; they could respect a witch who knew how to drink. Alastor, on the other hand, was an ugly, sappy drinker.

It was in Stalingrad where Arabella first drank with Alastor, where they were both stationed, on what felt like the coldest fucking day of 1941. It didn't take more than a few slugs from a bottle of vodka to make Alastor's cheeks flush rosy like a girl's and for his blue eyes to mist. He tried to take Arabella's mittened hand but she swerved away under the pretense of avoiding a patch of ice on the cobbled street. When they fell back into step, she yanked the paper-wrapped bottle from him before he could try any more sentimental tosh. The cheap alcohol burned Arabella's throat and she was choked for a moment by the wool muffler tied tightly over her ears and around her neck. _Alastor, you fool_ , she thought, but she appreciated the solidness of him as he trudged through the grey-white snow beside her.

Alastor's softness with drink was an interesting counterpoint to his usual gruffness, though not unexpected. Most people, Arabella had realized after years of watching, did unexpected things regularly—like the horrible Dursley woman, who kept Harry Potter under the stairs. Their paths often crossed in the evenings: Arabella, tottering down the sidewalk, and Petunia, bouncing along in her spandex jogging costumes. Despite her reservations about the woman, Arabella acknowledged Petunia's resolve. She had a fierce look about her as she ran past with gritted teeth and the sheen of sweat on her brow. It was not a surprise for Arabella to learn that in spite of Petunia's unyielding commitment to maintaining perfection within her home, she made allowances for the so-called deviant outside of it.

An overheard phone call: "This is Mrs. Dursley… Oh, Jack… I'm jogging… Yes, now is very good… Wearing? A singlet and tights… No knickers… Yes, I'm free on Thursday…"

Arabella found that human nature could be predictable for those who looked sex in the face. Sleeping with Alastor had been enjoyable but for the most part, Arabella could take care of her own needs. In actual fact, she had just wanted the experience of sex when she was young, not the pleasure of it. Alastor had been instructive, though now in her middle age, she didn't think she'd need to use sex-appeal again.

In Arabella's surveillance work, sex was of surprisingly little importance. Despite common perception, it had little impact on the ultimate course of most witches' and wizard's lives; it was just so common. The sex lives of purebloods, however, was another matter. A genetic predisposition toward infertility among the Sacred Twenty-eight families created fear-driven social customs, like arranged marriages, which were not common in the rest of Wizarding society. The public interest and resulting media coverage of pureblood romantic drama made Arabella's job marginally easier but like the media coverage of the Royal Family in the Muggle world, not all of it could be trusted.

The sex life of Madam Marpessa Bulstrode, nee Gaunt, was something Arabella once kept tabs on. Madam Bulstrode was known for three things: her magnificent bosom, her temper, and her husband's mysterious end, possibly murder. Arabella only found two of these things to be true. Now, she was more concerned with the _result_ of Madam Bulstrode's sex life—the chubby toddler she dragged along with her like a dinghy pulled by an ocean liner. Crowds parted when they came past and watched with a combination of awe and fear.

What would the future hold for little Millicent? Did it matter that she had one Death Eater parent and not two? In any case, Arabella empathized with the girl, though she didn't feel pity and certainly not any sort of maternal nonsense. Sometimes, when Madam Bulstrode was distracted by her yelling at shopkeepers and Arabella was on an errand to the veterinarian or to deliver a litter of kittens, she would open her kneazle carrier for the girl. It had become a sort of ritual for them. Millicent never smiled but regarded the kneazles with curiosity. She was gentle with them without Arabella needing to tell her to be. Once, when a kneazle swiped Millicent across the top of her dimpled hand, Arabella feared it was the end of their meetings but the girl did not cry-out as she had expected. Millicent studied the drops of bright red blood that budded atop the scratch. She shot Arabella a wary look, then shoved her hand into the pocket of her fine cloak.

Arabella thought Millicent could grow to be strong and hard like herself. Not that burying one's emotions made them vanish. Arabella cared for many things—the greatest obviously being her commitment to what she knew to be good and right, and her hatred for the Darkness that filled Grindelwald and Riddle. Her hardness was from an understanding of her emotions, she supposed, as being things that were powerful and best kept within her control. It had to do with how she could best serve the world.

Arabella saw she was on the losing side on this front. She also saw the draw to succumbing to one's passions. She could love Alastor; that was true. She could feel the warmth of that love—that power—in her bones when she thought of him. But did that necessitate her throwing herself into his arms? Was that the best way to yield that power? Arabella thought not. She would not be comfortable doing so; there were greater things than Alastor for her to commit to. Little Millicent might come to see that as well—hopefully for the right reasons.

In the early days of the Order of the Phoenix, romance had been all around. It was the topic of much of the after-meeting discussions, especially amongst the youths: Nymphadora Tonks, Emmeline Vance, and Dorcas Meadows. Their endless whispering and schoolgirl giggling grated Arabella. Their gossip, however, was always quite good. Despite Arabella's distaste in romance for herself, others' romances _were_ inherently interesting, especially when they placed bets on who would court who—or "hook-up", as the youths called it. Arabella, who had more experience and better instincts in identifying such things, was a high roller in this game, though she took less pleasure from winning than she did in perplexing the other players.

"How do you do it, Figgy?" Dorcas once asked, after emptying her pockets yet again. "What the hell are we missing?"

"Constant vigilance," Arabella answered. The youths groaned.

She had meant it tongue-in-cheek, of course, but there was some truth to it as well, though not in the way Alastor meant it. A good spy was vigilant of what was happening around them, of course, but they were also vigilant of their inner selves. Feelings were a blindfold if left unchecked. This was a point Arabella planned to impart to the youths eventually. There was much she could teach them—she almost looked forward to doing so—but she never did as things soon went to hell. Lily and James were murdered. Alice and Frank were tortured out of their minds. What could she say to the youths—that their friends died unnecessarily?

On her first morning after taking-up post in Little Whinging, it seemed fitting that a young man with brylcream-slicked hair and a clerical collar appeared on her front step.

"Have you found _Bejesus_?" the man asked.

That was Arabella's sign. She let Dumbledore in, wondering how he procured this man's hair for the polyjuice.

After they squared-away the details of the Potter boy, Arabella made a pot of tea.

"Is it not the preservation of ordinary life we're fighting for?" Dumbledore had said without prompting, as he chose a biscuit from the tin, "sweet crushes, biscuits and tea, cozy socks," blue eyes twinkled in the youthful man's face, "and tenderness?"

Arabella supposed so.


End file.
